I remember its been theorized (or proven) that the myth of Cyclops comes from a person finding a mammoth skull. So, probably informed lots of mythologies.
What did people think dinosaur bones were before we officially recognised dinosaurs?
Submitted 19 hours ago by LadyButterfly@reddthat.com to nostupidquestions@lemmy.world
Comments
Chippys_mittens@lemmy.world 19 hours ago
Temperche@discuss.tchncs.de 19 hours ago
elephant skull!
Chippys_mittens@lemmy.world 19 hours ago
Same shit nerd
Jerb322@lemmy.world 16 hours ago
barkybeak@lemmy.zip 19 hours ago
Specific theologies believe dinosaur bones were planted in the earth by satan to affront God.
digger@lemmy.ca 18 hours ago
Flax_vert@feddit.uk 18 hours ago
Never met anyone in the flesh who actually believed this
bizarroland@lemmy.world 17 hours ago
My dad did.
It was the most infuriating shit ever, even when I asked him why would God allow Satan to create something so perfect as to deceive billions of people with evidence baked into the deception that cannot be contravened by any method known to man, his response was it’s just to test your faith.
To which I countered, if God sent me to hell for believing that dinosaurs existed, then he’s not a good God. And to which my dad replied, that’s blasphemy.
And don’t get me wrong, I am a Christian. I believe in Jesus, I believe in God. I actually believe in all of the major religions, but I lean towards Christianity personally, but there has to be some rationality, some understanding that human beings can rely on because God gave us the brains to think rationally and to consider what’s directly in front of us for what it is.
If you have to willfully be stupid and believe lies in order to go to heaven, then why would God make smart people that want to see the truth?
ChexMax@lemmy.world 13 hours ago
My grandfather did (does?). There are a whole lot of people who believe the earth is only a few thousand years old. I have no further details cause you couldn’t pay me to broach the subject with him.
IntrovertTurtle@lemmy.zip 17 hours ago
I was at a small festival one time with my very rural-living family. There were people there passing out pamphlets that claimed dinosaurs were still alive in Jesus’ time and that they existed alongside humans.
I nope’d away from them as fast as I could. Now I wish I’d stayed to listen and share the stupidity.
radix@lemmy.world 17 hours ago
This satan guy sounds like a hoot. I want to see more of that.
CombatWombat@feddit.online 16 hours ago
The earliest known english-language account of a dinosaur bone is in Robert Plot’s 1677 The natural history of Oxford-shire: being an essay toward the natural history of England. This is what he says about what we now know as a megalosaurus thighbone:
There happily came to Oxford while I was writing of this, a living Elephant to be shown publickly at the ACT, An. 1676, with whose Bones . I compared ours; and found those of the Elephant not only of a different Shape, but also incomparably different to ours, though the Beast were very young and not half grown. If then they are neither the Bones of Horses, Oxen, nor Elephants, as I am strongly persuaded they are not . It remains, that (notwithstanding their extravagant Magnitude) they must have been the bones of Men or Women: Nor doth any thing hinder but they may have been so, provided it be clearly made out, that there have been Men and Women of proportionable Stature in all Ages of the World, down even to our own Days
The whole account is pretty interesting. He speculates about the origin of the bones and their medicinal uses and discusses the particulars of a few giants.
Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 19 hours ago
I would assume it’s along the lines of “hey I found something…”
Followed by “WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT???”
notsosure@sh.itjust.works 17 hours ago
Our Sweet Lord was practicing creature design in hot lava (I kid you not!)
DagwoodIII@piefed.social 18 hours ago
[off topic]
Fun historical novel set just after the death of Alexander the Great.
The gryphon’s Skull by Harry Turtledove.
Two peace loving traders just want to travel the Med and make a little money, but things keep happening. And BTW, they’ve found a gryphon’s skull.
https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-gryphon-s-skull-harry-turtledove/e21a50075c822e97
HubertManne@piefed.social 16 hours ago
fossils aren’t super easy to find and if you saw one you would think it just a rock. Not really sure how much is found above ground to. I mean if it looked immpressive enough maybe you sell it to a freak show or circus which I think something like them have been around for a long time.
Kolanaki@pawb.social 15 hours ago
Ammonite used to be called “snake stone” and was sought after for having magical properties.
Ludicrous0251@piefed.zip 16 hours ago
I have to think they weren’t a particularly common. If I were completely ignorant and happened to stumble across a giant fossilized femur sticking out if a rock or at some sort of traveling circus, I’d probably guess giant. If I were somewhat familiar with living creatures I’d probably guess elephant/mammoth.
dsilverz@calckey.world 18 hours ago
@LadyButterfly@reddthat.com @nostupidquestions@lemmy.world
There's an eccentric hypothesis I thought of: maybe people used the fossils alongside the surrounding stones for buildings, without ever noticing the fossil. This makes me wonder how many ancient constructions, from simple huts all the way to entire castles and fortresses, contain fossils as stones.
And this doesn't even seem to be limited to fossils: if we jump to Neolithic onwards, then fast-forward all the way to contemporaneity, some of the artifacts from back then (e.g. figurines such as Venus figurines, clay tablets, vases, papyri, petroglyphs, etc) likely ended up as part of buildings. Maybe those artifacts ended up unwillingly torn apart and ground by heavy machinery (e.g. backhoes, other earthmoving machinery, mining machinery and drilling machinery for petroleum wells, although these often involves prospecting, etc).
The artifact doesn't even need to be that old: I once saw a news story about someone who used a "hammer" for decades before discovering it was actually a WWII grenade.Professorozone@lemmy.world 17 hours ago
I was under the impression the some Christians thought they were proof that giants existed, a la David and Goliath.
The_Lurker@lemmy.world 10 hours ago
I watched some videos of slings as weapons of war, and as I see it, David was not the underdog. He brought a gun to a sword fight.
trxxruraxvr@lemmy.world 19 hours ago
Dragons